This is one among the many simple yet delicious recipes from Indira. Actually I stumbled upon her site while googling about jaggery (to be exact, how to break jaggery. God its difficult to break these mounds we get in Indian stores!) and have been hooked to it ever since. The pictures complement her style of writing. I've always had interest in cooking, but her site took it to the next level. Also check out another vegan carrot cake here.
This was the very first cake I have ever baked and to my surprise it came out very well the first time itself. I’ve baked it so many times that I know the recipe by heart. For recipe, click here. Sometimes her site is down, in that case mail me and I'll reply back with the recipe.
I’ve made a lot of variations each time I bake this cake, starting with the flour to other ingredients.
Indira’s recipe calls for either 2 cups of pancake flour or all purpose flour. The flours I used were:
- 2 cups of all purpose flour(APF)
- 1 cup of APF and 1 cup of whole wheat flour(WWF) (remember my husband is very health conscious)
- 2 cups of WWF
- 2 cups of pancake flour (I had a lot of ready to use pancake flour at home, because neither my son nor my husband liked the pancakes). So I wanted to finish it and I used it in the recipe. But the cake came out crumbly, I guess because the pancake flour has eggs and other stuff in it. Even after cooling, it was crumbly I couldn’t cut the cake into pieces like earlier. So I put the whole thing in the microwave oven and made them into balls, like small donuts. It held its shape very well. My son also enjoyed it a lot than ever, because he’s literally addicted to donuts. The taste was really good, because this time I used a combination of brown sugar and granulated white sugar, as I didn’t have enough brown sugar at home.
- The next time I used 1 cup of the pancake flour and 1 cup of APF. This time the cake came out very well as usual and I was able to cut into neat squares.
Other variations I have made:
1) Added some flax seed powder and oats (quick cooking) and topped the cake with oats, nuts and raisins. I should not have topped the cake with raisins because it burnt and tasted a little bitter.
2) I used muffin pans instead of a round cake pan. The measurement given in the recipe fills one 12 mini muffins pan and one 12 regular size muffin pans. The mistake in this episode was I baked both of them together for the same amount of time around 40 minutes. The regular size muffins were very good, but the mini muffins became dry and it was stuck to the muffin liner. I think I should have baked the mini muffins for just 15-20 minutes maybe. I should try it once again.
3) Recently I tried a chocolate version of the cake without using carrots and raisins and poured the batter in a bread loaf pan. I added mini chocolate chips instead of raisins. The cake was having a weird smell when it came out of the oven and also tasted little bitter. I kept on wondering why cocoa smells like this and the taste is also bitter when the chocolate cakes we eat in bakeries are so good. I used Natural Unsweetened Cocoa. Earlier I also had tried another egg less chocolate cake with soy milk and had similar experience. That time I thought soy milk was the culprit. After baking this banana bread only I realized that something was wrong with the cocoa powder. I did check the expiry date once again and saw it was only Feb 2009. So I did some research on cocoa powder and found out there were 2 different types of cocoa powders, Natural Unsweetened and Dutch Processed Cocoa. Bakers normally prefer Dutch Processed cocoa while baking. Natural Unsweetened cocoa can be substituted in recipes which call for baking-chocolate. I immediately opened my pantry to see which one I was using and I was using the bitter one. Last week I got Dutch Processed Cocoa and I have yet to try recipes using that.
Update:
I used 2 cups all purpose flour, omitted raisins and coconut because my mother in law doesn't like them in a cake. I used ¾ths cup of light brown sugar and ¼ cup of granulated sugar. Instead of grating the carrots, I chopped them up finely using my mini food chopper. Grating 4-5 medium sized carrots will give the required 2 cups. I added vanilla essence instead of cardamom and a handful of quick cooking oats. Otherwise I followed Indira's recipe. I baked them as muffins instead of one single cake. The recipe yields 12 large muffins and 12 mini muffins. I baked the regular size muffins for 25-30 minutes and mini muffins for about 20-23 minutes.
varsha says
oh ..I made like 3-4 times & every time I had it ... 🙄 maybe the brand or variety of the bananas matter??I usually get the dole or wegmans ones 😛
Hmm... I don't know the reason. I'm clueless!
varsha says
hi...I have become a great fan of this .. super yummy ....I have made like 3-4 times within a short period. everyone loved ..I too got the strands...whatever is was really good ... thanks ...
It's interesting to know that you too have got the strands, because I have baked it so many times and have not seen anything like that.
Sue says
the black strands are simply banana fibers. 😉
Christiena says
Thanks for the recipe! I baked this cake.. the texture was good, as I expected it to be. However, I've seen this in my baking many times, after the cake is baked, it has some black-brown strands formed in it. The cake also has a slight salty taste. I don;t know if that is because of the baking soda/powder. I don't like to add too much sugar for health reasons. But I don't know how to eliminate the salty taste as well as the black strands. Initially I thought it was flax seed that gave my cakes that unusual taste, so I stopped using it. But the taste persists even without them. What do you think it is?
Christiena, I have never experienced the strand thing you are mentioning. Does it happen always? I really don't know what to say. Maybe send one of your recipes, I'll try it and let you know. Even while using flax seed meal/bananas I have not seen this.
Claire says
Hello:
I tried the eggless carrot and banana muffin recipe from the link. They really turned out great even though I fiddled with the ingredients a bit. I unfortunately didn't have any dessicated coconut so used oatmeal in its place. I also used AP flour and added ground flax seed and a little bit of water to the banana mixture. I also didn't have a good oil, so used a vegan margarine. The aroma of the cardamom and bananas and carrots is heavenly! I can't wait to try your other eggless recipes. Thanks!!!
Claire, thank you very much for trying the recipe and the detailed feedback. I omit coconut by choice and have also included oatmeal. The specialty of this recipe is, it is so flexible and adapts well to any change.
CS says
I tried this one and it turned out excelllent. My 3 year old is allergic to eggs and this one was perfect.
She gave a thumbs up to this one.
Thanks CS. It's definitely a fail-proof recipe. Thanks to Indira.
Alka says
Hi
please let me know the recp eggless muffins,
thanx..
Will mail it Alka.
Blue Jay says
I like your recipe, but there's too much story telling. It's hard to cook with a print out when in a hurry. All your family members are included in the recipe. It was good if you could write the personal side in a concluding paragraph. Recipe turned out good.
Thanks for your feed back Blue Jay. I'm not sure if you are talking about this particular recipe or all recipes in general because we took care of this issue earlier and you would only print the Ingredients, Procedure and Notes. The other stuff will not be printed. Moreover in this post I've not posted the recipe at all, it would go to another blog. Anyway let me check the print opiton once again.
sai says
Hi
whenever i add raisins in my cakes/muffins they kind of melt and gives a bitter taste? how do i avoid this? pl advice.
Does the raisin sink to the bottom and because of that they melt sticking to the bottom of the pan? In that case what you should do is whenever you add dried fruits, nuts mix some flour to it and then add it to the batter so that it will not sink. I had bitter tasting raisins when I topped it together with some nuts on the cake and baked it. Both got burnt and gave a bitter taste. But other than that so far I've not had any such problem while including dried fruits in the batter.
lise says
Ciao again Madhuram! this time I'm trying the carrot banana cake-but just one question, how do you "powder" the cardamon seeds after you've removed them from the pods? I tried first in my food processor, but they are just too small and fly around. I am now trying with a mortar and pestle but I don't see much "powder" being formed. Thanks so much and buon weekend!
Hi Lise, we get caradamom powder in the stores here. It's especially cheap in the Indian grocery stores. You can also find it in the spice section where you find ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg etc. If you have a coffee grinder (the small one) you could use it to powder it. You have a wonderful weekend too.
Shailly says
Hi Madhuram,
Can you please let me the exact recipe for the banana and carrot cake. The link provided in the post doesn't open.
Thanks,
Shailly
priya says
Madhuram,
Thank you for the prompt reply.
priya says
hi ,
you have given precise instructions for the carrot cake.I have a very basic doubt if i'm using only APF how much of baking soda/baking powder I should add.?
Hi Priya, follow the link in the post and you can find the recipe in Indira's (Mahanandi's) post. I didn't reproduce the recipe because it was from her blog. I guess sometimes her blog doesn't open. In the meanwhile I'll check if I have a copy of the recipe somewhere.
Raji says
Your recipe looks very delicious, but unfortunately, the recipe link doesnt work 🙁
http://www.nandyala.org/mahanandi/archives/2005/06/14/carrot-cake/
Thanks,
Raji
Neha says
That looks good ......and your site is a saviour for vegetarians by choice !
Thanks Neha.
Naveena says
I tried this cake with oats and cashews, it came out really well.
Madhuram says
Thank you very much for trying it Laksh.
Laksh says
Tried it yest and came out real well! Thanks!!
Madhuram says
Hi Indira,
Thanks for visiting my site. You have set a very high standard for fellow food bloggers. Hope I can do my part well.
Reg. cocoa, I had no clue that there were 2 types of cocoa. So I just took one box from the shelf. Later only came to know about the difference between Dutch Processed and Natural Unsweetened. Recently I got another brand, which had "for baking and drinking" on the label and had "cocoa powder dutch processed with alkali" in ingredients. I think this should be fine.
Indira says
Congratulations on your new website, Madhu. It looks quite attractive and informative. Also, thank you for the good words about Mahanandi.
It's interesting to read your detailed notes on carrot cake recipe. The flax seed and oats variation of yours, that's very tempting. About cocoa, I remember reading that natural unsweetened cocoa would go rancid in short time compared to the processed one. That could be a reason for the weird smell in carrot-cocoa variation. Just a thought. I look forward to trying out your recipes with processed cocoa.
Congratulations again,
Indira